


four small lights

by BlackJacketsandPens



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Gen, Suicide Attempt Mention, and some mild trigger warnings, implied miscarriage mention, several original warriors of light
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:53:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21764062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackJacketsandPens/pseuds/BlackJacketsandPens
Summary: The origin stories of four Warriors of Light; where they came from and who they are.A loyal and devoted Doman shinobi, an idealistic paladin turned bitter dark knight, a traumatized but determined fiery black mage, and a young and cheerful summoner with a very mysterious past.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	1. alan shinui

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alan; the shinobi, the red mage, the daughter of the blood moons, she of black scales and blood and moonbright eyes.
> 
> (Can be found in game on Sargatanas as Alan Shinui.)
> 
> TW: mentioned suicide attempt within this chapter.

She was born on the night of a hunter’s moon, the twin moons in the sky both full and lit blood red--- as red as the blood that stained cot and hands alike as her mother’s life ended the moment hers began. This would be a cruel beginning as it was, but the eyes that blinked open as the infant began to squall were like moons themselves, devoid of pupil and shimmering like opals, or pearls, a blank white only shades darker than the sclera. 

A bad omen, the Dalamiq tribe called her. A cursed child. Shunned by Nhaama herself, marked in disgrace, birth stained in blood and the ill-omened crimson light of the twin moons.

And so she was shunned, as well. Her own father, her own elder sisters, everyone in her village. They left her to starve, at first, but the child was clever, crept to cookfires, stole scraps meant for dogs, slept in the shade of stones and bushes. So they gave up on letting her die, and simply treated her as a nuisance, unwanted, hoping to make her give up. Chasing her from cookfires with nothing, seeking her out a game for the other children, the bad omen with the moonlight eyes that could still see--- to throw rocks at, kick and strike and spit on, laugh at and call names because little ones only know what they are taught, and the village was taught to hate this child. 

She gave up, eventually--- but not to die. She fled, then, six summers of age, a small starved thing stumbling across the Steppes. She did not know where she was going, or if there was anything out there, anyone else out there. All she knew was that she would keep going until she no longer could, and prayed to the gods she’d been told hated her that someone would be there when she stopped.

She collapsed just inside the boundaries of Yanxia, nearly dead, and though perhaps the gods of the Xaela did not want her, Doma’s kami saw fit to bless the lost little one--- a man came upon her then, a shinobi, a Lupin named Ginzan. He saw the child dying, and gathered her up and took her in, back to his village. She was no wolf, not like him, but she was lost and alone and he was possessed of too good a heart to leave a child to die.

She was then able to give him her name, when she recovered, the only thing the Dalamiq had ever given her: the last thing her mother had given her, besides her burgundy hair and lavender skin. Her name was Alan, the cursed child, and she would be Alan from then on, no insults, no cruel names. Just Alan.

It was only a year later when Doma became Garlemald’s newest prize, but Ginzan did not give up hope; no, he continued to train in secret with his daughter, his pupil. Doma would bend, but not break, he was sure of it. So many were, then. And that is how Alan grew, a shinobi, the daughter of the blood moons taking to the night and shadows easily. Quiet, withdrawn, uncertain of her worth, she still trained. She trained and she listened, and though she thought herself only suited for the life of a shinobi --- giving herself the surname Shinui, death-weaver, because her hands only seemed fit for such a thing, cursed as she still believed she was --- she looked at the samurai with awe in her eyes. Honor, loyalty, devotion, those were things she admired, wished to embody herself. But she did not believe herself worthy to hold such ideals.

In her thirteenth summer, Alan completed her training, a gangly little thing with short hair the color of wine and those same pearl-white eyes, black scales blending into lavender skin and black clothes. She is not given a soul crystal--- Ginzan does not have one himself to give. But she is shinobi all the same, and she is recruited by a noble house loyal to the cause of liberation, of freedom. The clan Yoruken, and their mistress Yugao, the moonflower. A beautiful Doman maiden, with long black hair and dark eyes, elegant and kind--- Alan was struck dumb the moment she saw her, and fell in love instantly.

She swore perhaps too much of herself, a samurai’s devotion in the small form of a shinobi, but she swore all the same, young and in love and determined to protect her lady from all harm, no matter the cost. This would prove foolish, and unwise, but even years later, she would not regret it despite the pain it caused.

It was seven years later that it all came tumbling down.

It was quiet, it was peaceful, and then it was not. A contingent of Garleans arrived, accusations of treason on their lips, of aiding rebellious elements, and they came with guns hot and blades sharp. Lady Yugao hid Alan, then, the girl screaming protests into her lady’s hand--- hide, the woman ordered, my last request. Hide and tell the resistance of this day. And then she was locked in a closet, only able to hear the screams and smell the blood, the fire. She ripped a hole in the rice paper door, trembling, and watched the centurion strike her lady down. He had taken his helmet off at her lady’s final bold request --- she would see the face of her killer, and he seemed to like that fire -- and all she would remember, a sight that would burn into her eyes and her heart for the moment years later when she would see it once again, was long hair the color of summer-gold wheat, and a smile that was no more real, no more human, than one painted upon a festival mask.

She would never recall getting back to the Liberation Front’s headquarters, stained with blood from clutching her lady’s body and weeping until the fire came too close, stained with ash that gathered as she ran from the burning ruins of the manor, through the bodies of everyone who had lived there. She would never recall collapsing into her father’s arms, wailing, keening like it was she who had been murdered that day. She would never recall, really, tearing from his grasp and running, dry heaving as she stumbled away, away, grasping helplessly at her dagger, clutching at the blade like it was the only things he had left--- never recall, really, dropping to her knees to plunge it deep into her belly, sobbing wildly (she was dishonored, disgraced even if she completed her final mission, she had failed to protect her, failed her lady, and she wanted nothing more than to be with her again; cursed, she knew then, she truly was cursed) and fighting her father’s hands ending the attempt, begging him to let her die and burn with the other cowards and dishonored souls. 

He did not, and she spent three years with little knowledge of the goings-on around her, little desire to know. She slept, and wept, and suffered, until her father realized that living on in this place would only destroy her.

So he took her to the coast, paid the Ruby Tithe in her name, and sent her away. To somewhere else, to anywhere else, to find a new purpose, a meaning, a reason to live. A place to start over and find meaning, and heal. 

She bought two things in Kugane--- passage to Eorzea, and a potion that changed her face. She heard rumors, in the hostelry, of the people of the west fearing that which is different, and she already loathed her eyes; she did not wish to give them more reason to hate her. So it was a slightly different Alan that boarded the vessel; soft ears instead of horns, a furry tail instead of a scaled one. A miqo’te, she learned. She did not mind. Her hair was still short and the shade of wine, her skin still dark and pale lavender, and her eyes did not, could not change. But somehow no one batted an eye at them; perhaps the race she is now, they are more common? She didn’t really care. It didn’t matter.

She arrived in Limsa Lominsa, then, and stayed there as a guard to the merchants who brought her; there is nothing for her, nothing else left. Why would she not simply...remain where she was? No reason to travel, no reason to seek anything out. Just live, quietly, in this city of white stone and the smell of the sea. She had no desire for more.

Until the Calamity. Until the moon, her moon, became blood red once more and shattered, spitting fire and death upon Eorzea. She was sick at the sight, terrified, half expecting to turn into a monster herself and join the massive dragon in its slaughter. It was black scales and blood and she feared herself the same thing, a beast, given life by this monster that slept within the very moon her tribe worshiped. She was wounded in the chaos, collecting a scar upon her face as as she aided others in fleeing the destruction, and upon recovery, she realized one thing: this was no longer enough.

She was thirty-two summers when she left Limsa Lominsa, traveling to the city in the desert, Ul’dah--- she was thirty-two summers when she was spoken to by a crystal larger than anything she had ever seen, giving her a duty, a destiny. Something to hold onto. She was thirty-two summers when she met the Sultana and made another reckless vow of devotion to a brave and kind royal soul, who only wished to help others. She was thirty-two summers when she met the Scions, met Thancred Waters --- a man she would come to see as her brother in every way but blood --- and joined them, her strange new Echo still sitting strangely on her shoulders.

Tragedy happened, over and over; the massacre, the loss of loved ones, and then the banquet, and Alan again thought she would shatter. But two things stilled her hands from her blade this time; the first was rage--- this time she carried the memory of the monster of the moon in her, black scales and blood, and it beat black wings to chase away grief and replace it with fury, steeling her soul and her heart against breaking. She would live, and she would make this right. The second was a boy named Alphinaud Leveilleur, broken and shaken and in need, and it was in the warmth of the Falling Snows she knelt to him and swore her loyalty, properly this time, embracing the samurai’s spirit as she took his hands in hers and promised him he was not alone and never would be.

In a twist of ill luck, it was not long after that the potion she had bought wore off --- ill made magic from a merchant of ill repute, perhaps --- and she was herself again. Black scales and blood. But it was the kindness of their host that coaxed her out of hiding, his warm smile and friendly words promising her safety and kindness, and she was...contented. No one judged, no one sneered. So it was into Ishgard she walked, head held high, Alan Shinui--- au ra.

To lose that man, who had smiled so kindly, was a blow, but it did not shatter her this time. She would no longer let it. To hear the story of the black dragon, the monster of the moon, it gave her strength. Perhaps it should not have, but it did--- to know it, to see his beloved grieving still, choked by her guilt, it helped show her the way forward. 

As did the man she had grown very quickly fond of, though never loved the way she once loved the moonflower. He too was forged of black scales, blood, and death, he too carried pain and anger and loss in his heart. The Azure Dragoon, stained red with the blood of his own black dragon, his own rage. Even when he fell, his loss guided her forward towards his rescue, and though she did not love him that way, he was close in her heart all the same.

She never thought she could truly love again, and she had thought that she did not love Estinien was proof of it. And yet--- she did, somehow. 

The last person she would have expected to, at that; the man she had first met as an enemy, a crimson dragonshead staring her down in an arena of steel and magitek. The man who had approached the Tower with ill intent masked by cooperation, been devoured by the Void in a striking act of selflessness, and fought to survive long enough to be freed of it. He was like her, she discovered, running into him by sheer chance in his wanderings. Struggling to believe they meant something to the world, that their actions made them worthy. She still doubted, still struggled, to believe that anything she did could mean something; all she did was kill, after all, and even then she still could not save anyone half the time. And he doubted too, drowning in the shadow of his friend and rival, that his works would live in memory, would ever even matter at all. And yet, somehow they could see in each other what they could not see in themselves: worth. So they fell in love, the Warrior of Light and the former Tribunus. Fell in love and stayed in love through all the rest that occurred, through all that is still yet to.

She went forward, bolstered by love and by devotion and by bonds that had come back to her at long last, and she went home. She went home to Doma, to snap its chains, and she went home to face the man who had slaughtered her lady at long last. And she went home to the Steppes at long last, to face the people who had shunned her, cast her out. She did not meet the Dalamiq, but she was shocked, shaken, at the reception she was given. The Mol nothing but kind, the Dotharl speaking pride and praise for her fighting prowess, and even the Oronir, kings of the sun, spoke of her eyes as a gift, the moon’s light shining in them. There were those who spoke against her, calling her cursed and ill-omened, but those who were her friends pushed back, spit defenses and praise of their Warrior, and...she knew she was home. The Steppes would never be home, and that was well and good--- her home was with those who loved her, and always would be.

And her home would be Doma, and it was with her own hands she saved it. Saved it from the monster in a man’s skin, the same one she would save Ala Mhigo from, the beastlike hunter of beasts named Zenos. Saved it from another lady reminiscent of her own, dark of hair and eye, Doman and beautiful, the lady of the spider lilies with the tragic fate, to fall shrouded in moonlight.

But her fight wasn’t over. Not after that. Called to another world, to save a home not her own and in doing so save hers. Called by an old friend thought lost, older and wiser and so very sad. Given witness to the truth, or part of it, the tragic existence of the shadowless ones they had once hated without knowledge. It was hard to hate them now, but regardless. Understanding did not mean acceptance, and they would be stopped.

More importantly--- she found her home again; her family lost and found, fighting at last alongside her. Her brother, terrifying her with his pain and grief but finding his way again with his blessing, his daughter. The others, family all, the twins she had sworn herself to, brother and sister both, the sharp-tongued mage and the kind yet scheming scholar. She loved them, as she loved the man who waited back home, plotting his next mischief. 

She had been born cursed, an ill omen, the daughter of the blood moon--- and she had shed that stigma with light and love, trading her daggers for a rapier and standing in the sun at last, devoted and noble and willing to fight for those she loves, those who love her. Willing to fight for a cause and a purpose that has given her worth, given her the certainty that she means something to someone, somewhere. 

She is Alan Shinui, the death weaver, the girl with the moon in her eyes.

She is a Warrior of Light.


	2. bran quirke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bran; the paladin, the dark knight. The idealistic hero, the bitter jaded warrior. The fourteenth Convocant. And yet he still fights on.
> 
> (Can be found in game on Sargatanas, as Bran Quirke.)

He was born in a small town in Lower La Noscea, on a perfectly normal day, under perfectly normal circumstances. His parents were perfectly normal --- a fisherman for a father, and a talented Bismarck cook for a mother --- and so was he. A perfectly normal, average boy named Bran Quirke, who wanted to be a hero.

He dreamed of it, being a hero. Played in the yard of his home with sticks for swords and stray animals for dragons and monsters, retelling the stories he heard before bed out loud as he played the starring role. His favorite was the tale of the paladin, brave and true, who traveled far and wide to save the world with his beloved lady and his best friend, the noble and quiet dragoon. He wanted to be that paladin, knew the tale by heart, and every day more was another day closer to him realizing that dream.

He left home at sixteen, a gangly boy with messy dark brown hair and grey eyes, sword at his side and a smile on his face. He met his best friend not long after, staring up sheepishly from a ditch at the unamused Miqo’te conjurer raising her eyebrows at his ineptitude. Her name was J’nomhe, a brown-haired Seeker with a sharp tongue and a lewd wit, and they became fast friends in no time at all.

They went to Ul’dah together, two years later, and that is where everything began for them.

They arrived to a meteor shower, the strangest thing, and then Bran stumbled headfirst into the past--- a recurring business, that first stay in Ul’dah, the past and present twining together for him near seamlessly, spinning him in circles and confusing him with what happened when. But he was able to puzzle it out, that incident ten years ago--- a goobbue, an orphaned girl, a dancer and a jeweler’s son and a knife in the dark. The people he met then stuck with him, and then he met them all over again. F’lhaminn, the songstress, little Ascilia, Minfilia now, and the mysterious Thancred--- both friends to him, then, as he joined her Path of the Twelve.

He stood at the head of the line, then, fighting for her and for the Archons as the moon swelled and glowed red, fought for the Flames he helped build, loyal to the Bull and the Sultana both. He was a hero, and he loved every moment: not for the fame, not for the glory, but for the same reason he had ever and always wished to be a hero--- the sheer simple joy of protecting people, helping people, saving lives and doing good.

It was for the sake of the people, for Eorzea, that he stood and faced Nael van Darnus, and it was for the sake of Eorzea and its people he stood and faced down the great dragon that day at Carteneau. And then he was thrown forward in time, a last effort to save him, save Her Chosen few. 

He woke up alone, J’nomhe missing from his side, and stumbled back into a changed Ul’dah. Five years had gone by, and he was still the same boy, a Sultansworn-trained paladin of only eighteen summers. And no one knew who he was. No one could remember.

And the cracks began to build.

He found his Path again, alone this time, and rejoined them, now the Scions. Archons and Walkers both, his people, his friends. They did not remember him either, none of them but Minfilia, and for that he was grateful. She knew him, and he was not alone. 

The lack of memory was shocking, to be sure, as was his time way, but he did not mind. Of course not! He was home again, home now, and he would keep fighting. To protect, to save, to help--- to be a hero. As he always was and always would be.

And then he discovered his village ash and dust from the Calamity, his parents five years dead. And then the Sands was massacred while he was away, killing friends and comrades alike. 

And the cracks grew.

And he kept fighting, kept fighting, even when it seemed hopeless, like it didn’t matter. Like nothing he could do saved anyone, like all he could do was be too late.

And then he lost G’raha to his sleep. And then he lost Moenbryda to her sacrifice, even as they killed an enemy long in need of killing. And then he lost Wilred, gutted like a fish and left to rot in the forest alone.

And then he stood there, alone and unafraid (very afraid), at the gates of Ishgard, and he broke his shield on Vishap’s teeth, armor shattering and sword melting as the huge dragon nearly bit him in half because he simply _would not move_.

And the cracks kept growing.

And then came that day, that day when it all crashed around them. The banquet, the Sultana --- his Sultana, he’d known her for years, known her five years ago, his brave Sultana --- still and cold, the general he’d admired bloody and one-armed and on his knees, and him accused of murder, fleeing into the night, losing his best friends one by one by one until he was alone in the cold and the snow, barely able to hold the hot chocolate pressed into his hands. 

And then he broke.

It was not all at once. Bits of him flaked away as he trudged, unseeing, into the city. Shards cracking away and snapping off a soul so damaged by a reality that the idealistic child he was could not hang onto it any longer. He would never recall how he got to that dark corner of the Brume, only that he did, only that he picked that stone up, only that its magic and power jolted through him and brushed against his soul and found places in it that were never supposed to be awake again---

And the next thing he knew, he was in the middle of nowhere, a blizzard around him, and he was staring at himself. He wa nineteen years old, and he was broken, and he stared at himself, the same boy, the same dark hair and hollow cheeks and haunted eyes--- but different. The armor was black, the sword was as big as he was, and his eyes blazed a dark and angry red. He blinked, and then laughed; it was the tale in reverse, wasn’t it? A dark knight and a paladin.

And the paladin, the young idealistic child, the hero, drowning in pain and guilt and failures he could not bear on small shoulders, shattered into pieces, half that soul crumbling into nothing as the other half pulled away, all anger and resentment and hardness, cynicism and bitterness and pain, and pulled that tired child into sleep, tucking him away somewhere safe while the dark side of his soul became Bran, became the man standing there in dark armor, red eyes bright, while the til-then quiet half of him, the things he repressed, became the reality and the truth.

He would have left, then, abandoned it all and walked away from everyone. But it was a single linkshell call, a friendly voice, their host calling him brightly and with genuine concern as to where he was, to please hurry to the manor, it was cold and dinner would be ready soon--- it was that single call that pulled him back to them. He was broken, he was angry, he was bitter, but one single person showing concern for Bran, not for their beloved weapon, was enough to tie him down to them.

And then that person died for him, a smile on his face, and...he didn’t think he could break further. And yet...the cracks never went away. Never they would.

But now it was personal--- now he refused to walk away. That one man had believed in him, even broken, believed in him even bitter and angry and unhappy. And so no matter his failures, no matter how bloody the path he trudged down, he would stay on it. Not for Hydaelyn, not for Eorzea, not for any of the ungrateful bastards that called it home. But for him. For the Scions. For the people he loved. That was all. For them, he would walk on.

And walk on he did, no matter the pain of it. Through Ishgard, through Ala Mhigo, through Doma. He walked on. He found J’nomhe again, trapped beyond the wall and surviving, and pulled her back into his life--- she was happy to join him, and when he saw her again he couldn’t help but think of the man with his face, that Warrior with an axe from a dying world, and the sharp tongued Miqo’te that stood with him. It was coincidence, though, he decided. Nothing more. 

They walked on, then, together. Broken and bitter, jaded and disillusioned, but they kept going all the same.

They walked on to the First, to that dying world, and there Bran found what he had been looking for all along. There he found people who looked to him, who looked at him and saw not just a hero but a man, who reached out and offered to add their hands to his. Who fought beside him, stood beside him, offered help and acknowledged him. 

There he found a man who had risked everything for his sake, to throw himself back through time and space for his sake and his alone--- a man to whom he was an inspiration. A man who looked at him and praised him, everything he had done. Who did not see his failures, who told him of a world that had held him up as their guiding star, their light of hope. A world that was happy to cease to be so long as Bran lived on.

There he found he was the hero he had always dreamed of being--- a real one, not a faerie tale one. One who lived and breathed and failed and got up again, a hero who meant something. No one could be a hero like the stories; reality didn’t work that way. But he could still be a hero, was still a hero. 

And together with the axe-wielding warrior, part of his very soul, they stood against the darkness and became one, fought back the enemy (sympathetic, sad, soul, desperate to save something already gone, clinging to the past and lost in his failures; Bran couldn’t help but pity him, even if he had to be stopped) and stood tall the victors. 

And his soul, shattered as it was, healed itself. That sleeping boy slipped back in, the paladin, and he was truly Bran again, whole and complete even if his soul was small and sundered. And he knew he would keep fighting. For everyone, for the people he loved, for the people who gave their lives for his, for the people who looked up to him. For all those who held his cracked and broken soul gently and gave it the chance it needed to heal; still wounded, still injured, but whole again.

He is Bran Quirke, former paladin, dark knight, hero and inspiration.

He is a Warrior of Light.


	3. brona corcrain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brona; the mad mage, the botanist, the alchemist, the former vessel, the girl who will remember for the sake of the man who loved the woman she used to be.
> 
> (Can be found in game on Sargatanas as Brona Corcrain.)
> 
> TW: mentioned/implied miscarriage in this chapter.

She was born in Mhach, fifteen hundred years or so, give or take a few. It was a fairly normal day, and her parents were fairly normal, for Mhachi mages, but that really didn’t say much at the time, given what Mhach was like. She had an older brother, older by several years, and they adored each other very much.

She was a pretty little girl named Brona, then, brown haired and bright eyed, and she loved her brother Oisin very much--- especially after her parents died when she was only three thanks to...well, who knew? There were very many ways to die in Mhach. He became her only family, the only family she knew and remembered, and she adored him. He was her world, her everything, her big brother.

And then he died. 

She didn’t know about it, when it happened; he was a field medic in the Mhachi army, and was away on a mission. She didn’t know. No one told her. And then one day she walked into a classroom, a girl of fourteen summers, and was met with the sight of her brother’s corpse, riddled with brightly colored fungus and mushrooms, laid out on an examination table like it was just another dead body to poke at and learn from, like any other day of study.

She spent the next three years in a mad haze of grief, and even to this day she doubts she ever truly recovered. She threw herself into the arms of men who did not love her, who used her desperate devotion and need to be loved and gave her only crumbs while she gave them everything she had. There was a hole in her, a crushing abyss of grief and loneliness, and they would not heal it, no matter how she tried. 

The last one left her cold before she could even tell him she was with child, and desperate and alone, she decided to keep it. She lost it several moons in, a lab accident she will ever blame herself for (no matter where the blame truly lies), and never sought out another man to fill that abyss. She threw herself into her studies instead, passion twining with obsession as she studied her magic and studied her field of research, learning of plants and flowers and deadly poisons, herbal remedies and concoctions, alchemy and botany both. It was the only thing she had, the only thing in her life. The only thing she could hold onto when nothing else existed to her, nothing else loved her.

She was eighteen when she was given her first master--- a man named Tucian. She was nineteen when she killed him. He had been doing experiments, she knew that, creating chimeras, but the moment she discovered he was using children--- she burned his workshop down with him in it. She did not look back. 

She was given her second master several moons later, after routine probation --- students kill masters all the time, no one batted an eye --- and this time it was a man named Cathal. She killed him when she was twenty-one. He was torturing women to create an army of succubi, and with one purposeful missed step, she broke the circles and allowed the vengeful voidsent to devour him. She did not look back.

She knew two things, at the time: she did not like to see people causing harm to innocents just because they could, and she did not care what happened to her. So her kindness was barbed and vicious, her compassion lit with fire and death. She fought tooth and nail and drew blood to be kind, even mad with grief and empty of meaning, if only because these things were something she could not stand and watch.

She was not given a third master; she was assigned duty as a prison guard, and there she remained for two years. She was twenty-three when she discovers a group of children huddled in a cell, their faces marked with a brand she knew well: they were destined to be sent to the study halls, where master mages worked atrocities upon unwilling subjects, experimenting and learning in all the most twisted, terrible ways they could come up with, and new ones that were discovered every day. 

She took them to the border and sent them on, to where she knew there was an enemy outpost; even Amdapor would not harm children, she hoped. She was caught, then, and finally, finally it all caught up to her.

She was branded, then, and she was sent to the study halls in their stead.

She did not remember, and never would, the three years she was there. No one would be able to remember; it was torture, madness, a hell worse than any one could imagine. Her aether is altered, damaged, the flow ripped open and tainted with voidsent blood, filling a river not meant to be so deep or so wide with a current like whitewater rapids, black and dark with the void. Pain and power bound in her flesh, just to see if her body would survive it, if her body could last, and if it could not, make it so it could.

She was twenty-six when a figure approached the Mhachi, as they always did --- a woman robed in shadows, a crimson mask upon her face. None knew why this Paragon gave such frequent counsel, frequent aid, but none would complain for it; it was useful by far, saved them much trouble, and she was a valued ally, this Ascian. 

(If it was to claim responsibility for the Thirteenth by aiding that city that so heavily used the tainted fruits it bore, to make sure that ignorance and recklessness would not doom the Source the same way, then no one would ever know but her.)

And to this Ascian, then, this Martyr, they gave Brona. A new vessel, strong and powerful with the experiments she had been put through, magic enhanced and blood thick with the void. Igeyorhm took the offer, took the vessel, and Brona truly knew no more.

She knew no more for fifteen centuries, soul bound tight and asleep within her own body as it was used for...many, many years, many many sins. An Ascian wore her flesh with pride, powerful as it was, and used it well.

Eventually, eventually though, she was discarded. Worn past her prime, past its time, and so recklessly did the Ascian toss the vessel to gain a new one, thinking her Mhachi vessel would simply die in the desert from the shock of release, and she would no longer need worry.

Brona did not die. Whether it was from the taint of the Ascian having used her so long, or the experiments of the study halls strengthening her soul just enough that the shock bent but did not break, she did not die. She lay unconscious, half-dead but still hanging on, for a time, until a passing Brass Blade found her and rushed her to the nearest town; to Vesper Bay.

She did not die, but her body and soul were forever changed. Tainted, damaged, her soul shaky and stained with darkness, and her body stained as well; brown hair faded to a deep blue, the signature of her Ascian possessor, and eyes stained purple with the void, she was marked forever. Not that she could recall why, when she woke--- the shock did not steal her life, but it stole her memories; she only recalled her name, and that is all she could tell the Blades, and later the Scions, who took her in upon hearing of her uncommon aether and strange circumstances.

She could only give them her name, and the shaken, quiet, frightened Brona found herself pulled into the Scions’ orbit, and pulled into duties as a hero soon after. She was given a grimoire when thaumaturgy proved impossible --- only black magic would spit from her staff, and without a crystal (lost after all the years) it would kill her --- and she learned first the geometries of arcanima, and then stumbled across, ironically, the healing tactics of Nym. She found she enjoyed the art, to soothe hurts and cast disease upon her foes, but a sense of strange guilt followed her, one she could not name the reason for.

Not until Castrum Centri, when she witnessed an Ascian wearing the face of a friend, and her memories shattered forth, sending her to her knees in grief and horror. She did try to return the scholar’s crystal to her master, but he refused, forgiving her the sins of her country and urging her to forgive herself for things she had not done. She reluctantly accepted this, and reluctantly continued on.

Even with her memories, she shook and was scared, even more so when the Ascians kept appearing, kept coming. She did not want to face them, did not want to see them, did not want the reminder of the one thing of all the horrors she could not bear to think of--- Mhach, her brother, the baby, the study halls, none of it pained her and terrified her as much as the possession. But still she owed them, owed those who took her in and took care of her, so she kept going.

She kept going, and going, shaky and scared and quiet, through the death of one Ascian (and the loss of a friend), and onward to the horror of facing the selfsame woman who had stolen her life and her freedom for centuries. Onward to staring down Igeyorhm, and onward to killing her.

She struck down Igeyorhm, then, and--- it did not make her feel better. It did not fill the void, or heal the pain. It did not do much of anything but make her wish it was over already, make her wish it had done something more. That it had magically made it better, made her better. But it had not, it could not. She would look in the mirror tomorrow and the next day and every day after and see long blue hair and lavender eyes, and the brand on her cheek, and know that she lost the life she would have had. Know that even if this one is better than whatever Mhach would have held, the point is that she lost it. She would never know. All she would know is that it did not fix her. Her tormentor is dead, and it did not fix her.

It was hard, after that, but then...unexpectedly, she was given a gift. 

Shadows of Mhach lurked still, to her surprise, and tangling herself with the sky pirates who so vibrantly rushed in for excitement and treasure and to fly the skies freely, she found herself in the ruins of her home. She did not grieve her people, no; they fell and died on their own hubris, and she wouldn’t grieve. There was no one she loved left to be sad for. But what there was in that city were corpses, made animate by void magic. What there was, were soul crystals aplenty, their masters dead, and staves just laying around unused.

She would not admit, later, precisely to what she did after retrieving what she needed, but the surviving Talons and Redbills would whisper among themselves from then on --- with mixed awe and slight terror --- about the madwoman mage cackling her way through the city, lighting voidsent ablaze with gleeful, delighted abandon as she burned through the aether that had built up in her for far too long.

It freed her, regaining her magic, regaining that last piece of herself. It gave her something she could control, some part of what was done to her that was hers again, and only hers. It gave her something that was hers again, and the shy, shaken girl she had been found her fire again, found her claws and teeth and sharp-edged kindness. The void still ached, the abyss in her chest still felt empty, but she had herself back. She had herself, and it felt good. She did not give up her grimoire, kept it at her side, but she had herself back, the fire and storm.

She stood taller again, found her strength, and strode forward with renewed certainty, renewed confidence. She felt free to be herself again, the mad mage, the passionate botanist, and even with her pain, her trauma, she felt... _alive_ , for the first time since she woke without memory.

She strode forward towards Doma, towards Ala Mhigo, and was not afraid--- not even of Ascians; they were nightmares to her, demons, things in the night that had stolen her life away for so long, but she was no longer afraid, because she had killed two, seen to the death of a third, and they were not invincible. She could face them; the curtain had pulled back, and the monsters could die.

And then her steps led her to the First, and she met an Ascian that did not seem like an Ascian at all. He was so real, so vivid, so sad and alive--- and as he slowly unraveled his truth to them, tragic as it was, she felt...something she knew she should not. But she saw a void in him, too, a painful and tragic thing, an emptiness that loss had burnt into his soul that could not be filled. One she understood well; and though his means were not to be allowed, could not be allowed, his ends...his cause, his loss...she felt him deeply. She perhaps saw the man he once was, could have been, the man that horrors stole the life away from, as her own life had been stolen. They both lived on even so, and yet...there would always be that void, that knowledge that things might have been different, had the worst not taken them and devoured them.

She knew, in the end, she could have loved him. Maybe even did. But in the end, she had to lay him to rest. For all that she understood, all that she sympathized, they could no longer coexist, and she would mourn him for the rest of her days--- someone she could have loved, after so long, someone she wanted to love. 

Someone he had once loved, if the words of the shade were any indication--- she had meant something to him, the woman whose soul she bore, and then that she loved him now...perhaps it was that soul, or perhaps it was not. But even so...it wasn’t something that mattered anymore. All she had were memories, and so she would remember. She would remember, and she would keep fighting. She would prove to his ghost that there was good in the world, that the utopia he had longed for may be gone but there were still people that were good, still people that held shadows of that perfect world. She would fight for that memory, that knowledge, to be the kind of person that he would think worthy. Because if they were to destroy the last of that race, if they had to wipe out the darkness from the shards, then she would make sure those that remained remembered, and lived up to that memory.

She is Brona Corcrain, mage of Mhach, mad botanist, and the one who will _remember_.

She is a Warrior of Light.


	4. cassandra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassie; cheerful girl, bright girl, collector of minions and small cute things, former assistant to a man who had once been a good, kind soul, last remnant of a lost people.
> 
> (Is not currently in game, but perhaps will be one day.)

She was born in Amaurot. Nothing else need be said but that.

She was born in Amaurot, all those eons ago, a happy girl in a happy world. Her parents were researchers, studying the stars and life that might be beyond them, and she sought to emulate them; at least, she wished to be a researcher too. 

Her name was Cassandra, and she studied hard, learned everything she could--- she was a bright girl, a ball of sunshine beneath mask and robe, an easy smile for everyone and a love for the cute little creatures found in the Akadaemia. She laughed quickly, spoke cheerfully, and was always willing to help or play around. Young for her year, graduating with good marks, it was only a matter of time to see where she would get to apply her talents. 

A personal assistant, then, and she was nervous for the position; it was a high position, a professor, she had heard, one who had fired several assistants before her. Was she the kind of person he’d like, she wondered, or was his superior just that desperate? Who knew what he would be like...she was curious, and curiosity turned to determination: he wouldn’t fire her, she would make sure of it.

Finding out it was the Speaker himself she would be assistant to only made her falter for a moment. Just a moment! But she righted herself, and made herself invaluable.

Well...in a way. Developing a crush wasn’t very valuable, but that was also ignorable. What was useful was how she saw through his grouchy, irritable demeanor immediately--- saw what he really was; overworked, undersleeping, and completely unwilling to change either behavior. So she made him do so, chasing him with books and papers, getting him locked out of his own office so he would sleep, and generally harassing him and bullying him into taking care of himself. He did not like it at first, and there were many times she almost feared she overstepped, but...she stayed.

His wife liked her, too, which was a plus. She liked her, and so teamed up against her husband when it was necessary. Cassandra ended up with a crush on her, too, which was silly; they were happy, and they did not need a third party in their relationship. Especially when they had a daughter! A sweet baby girl, adorable and bright--- she babysat her often, playing on the floor of her father’s office, laughing and telling stories as the child gurgled and giggled, holding out her dozens of horse dolls (her father loved making them for her) to add them to the tales.

It was a happy life, warm and sweet and pleasant, like every life in Amaurot. And then it no longer was.

The final days crept close, then, cities falling around them and the sky lit with fire, monsters from nowhere, a sound that screeched discordant from the earth and shattered the peace. Cassandra was frightened, everyone was frightened, and Lahabrea and all the other Convocants fought and fought and worked and worked and bled and sweat and cried as they tried to find a way to save their world.

Lahabrea and his researchers worked on the GF project, her included, over and over, creating the Guardians, beings to fight and protect from the monsters; but even so, nothing seemed to work, nothing seemed enough. That creature was caught and escaped, Archaeotania broke free, and it was terrifying. Everything was so very terrifying.

And then Cassandra walked into her parents’ research room in Anyder to find them torn apart, a Terminus beast looming over them with blood on its jaws. That was enough, it was enough, the fear was so great that she could not deal with it any longer. It all felt hopeless, and she was too afraid to think clearly, too afraid to think of those she was leaving.

She took her parents’ research, on the stars and life among them, and read it a thousand times until she was sure that somewhere out there was another place, another world, and perhaps this one was not dying. It was the only thing she could think to do, the only way she could think to be safe. She was so scared, so afraid, so selfishly frightened--- she couldn’t bear the feeling of fear, so foreign to her soft and gentle soul. 

So she fled; she shed her body, and threw her soul uncalculated, afraid and full of desperation, out into the stars, praying and hoping that it would find a way to a world where she would be safe.

She did--- she found a small world, some ways away, a world without magic, and there her soul unconsciously tucked itself into a newborn babe, unwilling to usurp someone who already had a soul of its own. The shock of throwing herself so far, of pressing herself into a foreign body, it stole away her memories, made her forget who she was, what she was. So she grew up, somehow still with her own name (perhaps her soul’s influence upon her would-be parents as it passed through to get to her body), a girl named Cassandra, hair black and short, eyes pale grey, and freckled.

But Cassandra’s life on this small, magicless world was not a good one. 

Her soul was too big for her body, too strong and too bright for a body built on a world with no magic, no aether, and it made her sick. Caused her body to be frail, fragile, ill with seemingly no cause. Her parents were well-off enough to pay for a high end hospital, but...distant enough to leave her there, alone, especially when a healthy little brother joined the family. She lived there, then, alone, in the hospital. No friends, no one there but nurses who were kind but not close, and the other children, who came and went and never lingered, unless they were far sicker than her.

All Cassandra had was stories, games and books, tales of heroes and grand adventures, and she loved them all. They were her family, her friends, the characters in these stories, the only ones she ever had. Her memory was only this, and this was all she had. So she clung to it, the only thing in the world that gave her hope. The only things that kept her company in her long, lonely hospital stay.

She was--- well, her body was eighteen years old when she was found by the crystal her people had created, the shining primal of light whose duty and purpose had been programmed to be the protection and care of all lives on the world, all lives on the shards. And Cassandra was a lost lamb, and needed to come home. But she did not know that, at the time; all she knew was this was a call to adventure, a promise of good health and to be part of a story like those she had longed to be part of. And so she agreed, happily, and so she went home.

She was happy, then, a girl given a grimoire, given a new body able to contain her (or maybe none at all, aether and crystal binding her to a physical form, soul dense enough to be tangible even as her lack of memory dulled and dimmed it, keeping it from being what it was meant to), and given friends. Family. The Scions, people she loved, people who loved her. People who wouldn’t leave her lonely, people who wouldn’t leave her afraid. For fear and loneliness still lingered, inexplicably, and she could not say why. Even when she was happy, even when she knew she had people and friends who loved her, who cared, she was still lonely, still somehow afraid. But it wasn’t hard to ignore, so she ignored it.

She was happy, delighted, a heroine--- and she would fight for her people, fight for this new world that gave her a second chance at life (the old world, the one that belonged to her long before it belonged to any other, even if she did not recall it), no matter what. She would fight and fight happily, fight all the harder with each loss, because no matter how sad she was, how much she missed them all, she would keep fighting because they would want her to keep going.

She would keep going because she was the happiest she’d ever been, no matter the sadness involved. The world was cruel, the world was tragic, but she saw the good in it, the happiness she held onto, and she would keep holding onto that.

She held onto that thought, that hope, all the way to the First, and on the First, deep in the depths of the Tempest, as she walked out of a tunnel and into a city that no longer existed, she remembered. She remembered who she was, and remembered the city; remembered the reason for her fear and the reason for her loneliness. Remembered the man she once knew, the grumpy and overworked Speaker, the loving father and doting husband who she had watched die a twisted shadow of himself, broken and tempered and mad with grief and rage. And she remembered the man they had come to kill, the man that she knew there was no saving.

It hurt, it ached, it clutched her chest and squeezed it, but she had to keep going. All the magic she had learned, the Allagan art she had picked up along the way, and all the magic she remembered, she’d have to throw it at a man she once knew, a man she hardly recognized. Broken with grief, twisted with darkness, mourning and mad with it from eons alone with all his pain….it hurt to see Emet-Selch so ruined. He had been so kind, once. They had all been so kind. And now...and now this was all that was left of them.

This, and then her. 

She had to live. She had to live and keep living, fight and fight and stay alive, protect this world they had now. Because it was the only one left, the only one that could be. And if she had to kill her remaining ancients to protect it...it was what she had to do. So in the end, she would do it, but she would live on for their sake. The one that survived, the one that fled and came home. The last whole soul, the last untempered one. She would live and she would remember, she would protect the goodness that still remained, the goodness they couldn’t see. She would not be afraid this time...this time she would stay, and this time she would fight to protect her world, the only world she had left to her. Her home.

She is Cassandra, ancient, lover of small creatures, summoner, former assistant to Lahabrea.

She is a Warrior of Light.


End file.
